


Stalemate

by Keleshnar



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Abandonment and belonging, Enemies to... they're not quite sure yet, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Luke and Leia have a different sort of Force-bond, Opportunities and liabilities, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Rey has a lot of feelings to sort through, Rey still feels alone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-14 00:16:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13581987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keleshnar/pseuds/Keleshnar
Summary: Snoke was dead and yet still the connection between Rey and Ben was alive. Had his involvement in the Force-bond been just another manipulation? The fallout from the Battle of Crait resounds across both sides of the war.Immediately post-TLJ. Tag additions and ratings change TBD as additional chapters are added.





	1. Off balance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You’re not alone. Not anymore,”_ whispered a voice from her memory. The only other person who knew the depth of loneliness like she did and who understood her loneliness in life was someone she did not want to think about right now.

As the entry ramp to the Millennium Falcon lifted from the salty surface of Crait, Rey focused all her disappointment, frustration and – yes, anger – into one sole wish to shut Ben out of her mind. As she stared him down, his expression was far milder than would have been expected right after the duel with his Uncle. Rey felt only a brief flood of surprise from him through the link as the ramp clanged shut and the connection was severed.

Snoke’s death should have ended the Force-bond, if he had truly been the one to create it. She doubted now that he had been. It had been multiple hours since her lightsaber – Vader’s lightsaber, Master Luke’s first lightsaber, now broken – had skewered the Supreme Leader in his throne room. Hours which felt like days since she and Ben had fought together before reaching a stalemate once the immediate, mutual enemies had been vanquished.

Maybe Snoke had simply been manipulating an existing Force connection the whole time, like he had manipulated Ben for so long. Well, both her and Ben. If Snoke’s exploitations had strengthened the Force-bond, they might be stuck with this connection for good. Master Luke had closed himself off from the Force completely, and Rey was not willing to do that just to cut out Ben’s presence. But if it was a permanent link, then she needed to learn to control it and shutting down the connection today was a good start. 

Looking around her, she approximated the number of people she’d escorted onto the Falcon. The Resistance desperately needed all they help they could get, clearly. The number of people on the ship currently was many times the total she’d been designed to house, but it was a far cry from the size of the Resistance on D’Qar back when she’d been there just a few weeks prior.

Bumping in to BB-8 in the passageway had turned her thoughts back to brighter topics. She was so glad to see him again! He’d had a good cleaning and some repairs since returning from Jakku to the Resistance Base, and he had just started to tell her about his latest adventures with Finn, a mechanic named Rose, and a scoundrel named DJ when his master spotted the two of them and introduced himself. 

She was finally meeting _the_ Poe Dameron. From what BB-8 had told her he was the best pilot in the Resistance, and she knew Finn counted him as a trusted friend. Rey smiled, looking forward to getting to know him better. Another new friend for her within the Resistance. She needed more of them, to keep her from staying so lonely.

 _“You’re not alone. Not anymore,”_ whispered a voice from her memory. The only other person who knew the depths of loneliness like she did and who understood her loneliness in life was someone she did not want to think about right now.

* * *

Not long after takeoff, Rey found herself sitting on some cargo containers in the center of the lounge, alone. She knew people were aware of her there, but they were planning, mourning, recuperating, and socializing. She didn’t quite fit in yet. Even Finn, her closest friend in the Resistance – she had heard someone call them Rebels now? – was distracted, paying her no mind as he carefully tucked a blanket around the shoulders of that mechanic as she lay unconscious on a bunk. He was focused on the task at hand, his gaze only for her and his movements gentle.

Rey felt a small pang of regret and longing in her chest as she watched him. She would have loved to have someone watching over her with so much care when she had been growing up on Jakku. His actions reminded her of when she was by Finn’s bedside on D’Qar. Right now was he caring for a friend or… more? Did she think of Finn as more than a friend, either then or now? She wasn’t sure she would be allowed the opportunity to find out, if he and Rose were already attached, and that made her sad. 

Maybe he was just caring for his friend after all, she told herself. The whole surviving group had fought the First Order together, which was bound to make people close. She and Finn hadn’t had more than a few seconds to catch up yet; she would pay attention to how he spoke about Rose and put these thoughts away for now. After all, the hug they had shared after she freed them from the caved in escape passageway was such a relief and so natural. At the very least, she was confident she still could consider him a good friend.

The comment, _“Escape now, hug later!”_ muttered in Han Solo’s gruff voice came to her mind, making her smile sadly. The events on Starkiller Base, too, were only weeks in the past. Then Finn had crafted a plan to rescue her; now she had returned the favor.

Rey felt General Organa’s approach before she saw her. If the older woman noticed where Rey had just been staring, she did not comment on it. They spoke of Luke’s passing and the task of creating a new Resistance: “We have everything we need.” The General did not seem overly concerned that the only lightsaber Rey had was now broken, which gave her hope that maybe there was a way to fix it. She was good at fixing things.

Leia recounted anecdotes about the rise of the Rebellion during the Empire, engaging Rey and asking her opinion whenever there was a parallel to be drawn to their current situation, which was often. Rey wondering if this was what having a mother was like – comforting you with stories while teaching you how to carry on through hardship. Leia’s eyes were sad even when the stories were positive, clearly reflecting how heavy the past weeks had weighed on her. Rey reflected how amazing it was that the leader of the Resistance could still inspire and instruct while acutely suffering so much loss.

After ten minutes, their conversation came to a natural pause. Rey stared down at the broken lightsaber in her hands again, her thoughts now turning to the exposed circuitry and thinking through the concepts of how a lightsaber might work, if its heart is a force-imbued crystal.

Rey was therefore caught severely off-guard when Leia commented, “So, Luke told me that you and my son have some sort of Force-bond.”


	2. An Uncertain Bond

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I didn't mean to connect with him, ever. It just happened. I didn't tell him anything; I didn't put anyone at risk except myself."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Picking up immediately after chapter 1...

\--Rey was caught severely off-guard when Leia commented, “So, Luke told me that you and my son have some sort of Force-bond.”--

Only Organa’s dark, intent eyes gave away the seriousness of the new topic. Rey was sure her own eyes were as wide as a Porg’s, with a look of panic similar to when she’d first seen Chewbacca chasing some of them down for dinner back on Ahch-To.

_How did she know? If from Luke, how much did he know from the one time he had found her and Ben touching hands in her hut? Were Force-bonds actually common?_

After multiple seconds of letting Rey struggle through her thoughts, eyes darting around as she tried and failed to formulate a sentence, the General took pity on her.

“So that’s a yes, then.” Rey’s gaze finally met hers again, and her face showed the uncertainty, guilt and fear of a scavenger scared of being kicked out of the find of a lifetime. She’d stumbled into a family she felt a part of, the Resistance, and after being trusted with a mission to bring back its legendary hero, she couldn’t bear the thought of being kicked out for fraternizing with the enemy.

“Luke told me.” Leia continued. “Well, he kind of told me. I had a conversation with his Force projection.” 

The leader of the Resistance was the one to drop her gaze now, watching the end of her cane as she tamped down on a piece of compacted salt which had hitchhiked onto the ship. “He and I have – had – our own kind of Force-bond.” The correction to past tense led into a moment of respectful silence.

Leia met Rey's nervous gaze and continued, "We didn't need to speak aloud to communicate with each other, even across great distances. Until he cut himself off from the Force, that is... then it was like when I was young, before I even knew I had a brother. Back then I only knew that I felt this deep connection to the galaxy, something which I could not name. When Luke revealed our parentage to me, right before the Battle of Endor, it was like a shroud lifting to reveal an obvious truth. Somehow, I had always known."

Rey didn't know many details about General Organa's personal history, even what was apparently public knowledge, but nodded along out of politeness. She had clamped shut the connection with Ben mere hours earlier, yet somehow she knew that wasn't the same as when Luke had cut himself off from the Force. The connection Rey herself felt to the Force, as she had just recently learned to sense it in everything around her, was still vibrant and pulsing in the background if she closed her eyes and focused. 

Back on the island, when Rey realized that Skywalker had shielded himself against the Force, she had not understood the full magnitude of what he had sacrificed in the process. Leia had not only lost her son when he became Kylo Ren, but at the same time had lost access to her brother. And now in the space of barely a few weeks, she had lost her husband at the hand of their son and she both reconnected with and lost her brother. The woman had suffered so much.

"When did the connection begin?" Leia asked, leaning toward Rey only slightly, but the import of the question was felt.

"On... on Ahch-To, when I was studying with Master Skywalker," Rey thought back, remembering the day when she had been enjoying the rain outside the _Falcon_ \- how naive that girl seemed to her now - and how confusing the whole thing had been.

“Or maybe it started before that?” she corrected herself. Thinking back further in their brief history, Rey made herself remember how Kylo Ren had forced his way into her mind when he interrogated her on Starkiller Base. When she eventually repelled him, she had forced her way back into his mind. Could that have been what actually created their link? 

Or was it even deeper, as Leia seemed to suggest it had been with her and Luke - that there had always been some connection, and they simply hadn't known how to access it? Rey had told Master Skywalker that the Force had always been inside her but now it was awake... could that have been the Bond, too? But she and Ben weren’t related, so maybe the Skywalkers’ connection was different.

"Snoke claimed that he created the connection when Ben was conflicted after… after Starkiller Base," She fully dismissed Snoke's claim on the connection now. Rey still couldn’t describe what happened that day without getting emotional. She hated how Ben had forced her to confront those painful memories directly. Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she clarified: "Ben interrogated me on Starkiller, before I escaped. I fought back using what must have been the Force. Maybe that created it? I don't know, honestly. The connection made itself apparent while I was studying with your brother."

Leia watched Rey with a significance she knew she didn't understand. The only comment was a thoughtful "Hmmm..."

Rey didn't want to give Leia any reason to suspect she wasn't fully on the side of the Resistance, so she kept talking. "I mean, if it existed before Ahch-To, I couldn’t tell. Right before we connect, there is an odd pulse of energy and everything gets quiet. _That_ never happened before I was training with Master Skywalker.”

She thought hard about how to describe seeing what had begun as the weirdest experience in her entire life. “We could see each other, but not anything else, and we didn’t know when or why it would happen. He wasn't just a floating head. I could see him move around, walking, on his ship. We could share memories with each other. Think of them and project them to each other, I guess."

"Then you couldn't see anything around him; nothing of his surroundings?"

"Not really; not at first. Although, the first time we connected I tried to shoot him with a blaster, and I do think he knew what I was holding. The connection got stronger each time, it seemed. It certainly lasted longer. The last time I saw him-"

"He was there, Luke told me. Luke felt his presence, and he found the two of you both in your hut."

Rey's stomach did a nervous flip. She made a mental note that Leia had jumped to conclusions about when was the last time Rey had seen Ben. Switching gears, she tried hard to imagine what Luke would have seen, outside the experience looking in at her hut as he ripped the walls away. This situation might look traitorous if she wasn't careful.

"Ben was... comforting me. He appeared after I’d been in the dark cave underneath the island, and I just started talking. He understood what it was like to be lonely. He really understood." Rey sought out Leia's eyes to judge whether what she had said had resonated with the older woman. Leia was still Ben's mother - would she be comforted by knowing that he wasn't a monster anymore, if only in one small way?

A flash of shock and what may have been hurt flitted briefly across Leia's face. Rey's voice shrank down smaller with every word she spoke: "I didn't mean to connect with him, ever. It just happened. I didn't tell him anything; I didn't put anyone at risk except myself."

“Have you tried to control it?” was the only response. Leia’s tone wasn’t exactly cold, but her stately politician’s mask was back in place. Without probing through the Force – and that would be both rude and risky, given the other’s Force-sensitivity – Rey had no idea how to interpret this reaction.

“The… Force-bond, you called it?”

“Yes. Your Force-bond with Kylo Ren. Have you tried to control when it happens, or tried to prevent it from happening?”

The younger woman’s eyes grew wider; she was fearful of the repercussions of the truth. “Master Skywalker didn’t teach me how- “

“I’m not asking you what Luke taught you, Rey.” Leia interrupted. “I know any time you had for training was much, much shorter than, well… than what was needed. But you’re extremely gifted, powerful in the Force, and a quick learner. When we spoke on D’Qar, you told me some details of your life on Jakku. You survived on your own; you figured out all the essentials. What I’m asking of you now is to do that again. We need you to learn how to control this new part of your Jedi powers, and fast.”

“…you’re not going to kick me out?” Rey gripped the two parts of her broken lightsaber tightly, holding on to this confusing mix of fear and hope to keep her grounded in the present moment.

“What?” Leia looked genuinely taken aback, and some of her intensity abated. “Oh…” after only a moment she reached out and placed her hand over Rey’s, gently squeezing once but not letting go. Rey swallowed and kept her gaze low, cheeks now burning in embarrassment. 

“No, dear, this is your home now. The Resistance needs you, for your wits and mechanic abilities as much as your lightsaber.” As if sensing Rey’s forthcoming protestations regarding the obviously broken lightsaber, she continued, “You’ll fix it, I know you will. In the meantime, I hear you’re very good with a quarterstaff.”

The General chuckled, sitting back and releasing the girl’s hand. With a deep exhale, as if resetting the conversation, she asked again, “So: have you tried to control the Force-bond? Tell me more about its limitations so far and we can work out ideas together.”

After a few long breaths, and filled with the continued vote of confidence from the leader of the Resistance, Rey’s anxiety level decreased significantly. “On the island it didn’t feel like something that could be controlled. It was just off or on; maybe you would call it open or closed. It started without any real warning just like it faded out on its own. But I know now what the energy pulse feels like as it begins, so maybe that’s something.”

“Did the connection ever happen when you were not alone?”

Rey bit the inside of her cheek, reflecting on whether Chewie or Luke had seen her talking with Ben any time before when Luke burst in on them touching fingers. That first time, when she had just woken up, Luke saw her while she was talking with Ben and had only commented on her “handiwork” with the blaster, not a sudden appearance of his nephew. Had Ben heard his uncle through the connection before it broke off?

“We were each alone every time the connection started. When Master Skywalker interrupted the last connection on Ahch-To, Ben disappeared almost immediately. An earlier time, Master Skywalker saw me but not Ben, and his real-world speaking to me broke the connection, maybe because my focus shifted. He was still severed from the Force then,” she was quick to continue.

If the Jedi Master hadn’t been closed off from the Force when she arrived, that could have changed so much. Would he have taught her more? He might have stopped her from communicating with his nephew, or instructed her on how to shield her mind from the connection. Would she have found out the truth about Ben’s last few hours at the Training Temple, or learned that he was still conflicted and not only a monster? Would she still have sought out Ben on the _Supremacy_ if her connection to Luke had been deeper, filling the role of a mentor also strong with the Force?

Leia’s hand on Rey’s shoulder roused her from her swirling thoughts. Rey hadn’t noticed Organa stand up, other pressing Resistance business undoubtedly pulling her away from their conversation.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned about being a Jedi, it’s that staying aware of the present moment is crucial. Don’t get too lost in your thoughts. There is a time for reflection and a time for planning, but neither of them should come at the cost of the current moment.” A small smile touched her lips but did not reach her eyes: “I practiced it better than Luke, I think. He would ruminate on the past; the future. Even as he related how the Jedi who trained him, Master Yoda, warned against that particular sin, he would be temporarily stuck in the past. Politics taught me to fully engage in the present moment, learning from the past while leading toward the future you want to realize.”

Rey nodded. Another lesson, but not one Master Skywalker had deemed important for her to learn.

“Rey, does my son currently have more control over the Bond than you do?”

She hesitated only for a moment before responding, “No, I don’t think so. We were both confused how and why it was happening. The last time we connected – right after the Battle of Crait – I was actually able to stop the connection. He looked very surprised.”

The older woman’s sharp, dark eyes were once again fixed on Rey’s face. Rey felt guilty and wasn’t sure why she had not corrected the General before on what was _actually_ the last connection she’d had with Ben. Her scavenging days weren’t very far behind her; maybe she’d unconsciously withheld information that would be valuable as a potential bargaining chip. But General Organa was her commanding officer now, and even more importantly, Rey trusted her. If this information could help the Resistance sooner, Rey had to share it.

“The last time I saw Ben through our… Force-bond… was as we were escaping Crait. I had just helped the last soldiers on to the _Falcon_. So maybe there were people around then, but no one was paying attention to me. I couldn’t see anything around him, but I think he saw the door of the _Falcon_ closing. I ended the connection after that.”

“He knows the _Millennium Falcon_ very well. And by now he has confirmation that we all left on it,” Leia said. “If he were able to see any of your surroundings while you’re around navigational instrumentation…”

“You think he would use the connection to hunt us down.”

“Yes,” was the immediate, unhesitating reply. “Rey, I need you to avoid the cockpit and areas where sensitive plans are being stored or discussed until we understand this better. We can’t risk being tracked down before we’ve regrouped. Chewie can work with Poe and the other pilots we have left to keep us on our path.” 

Leia must have noticed the Jedi apprentice’s face fall at the prospect of being semi-useless for the next leg of the journey, because she continued, “I’m sorry. I’ll ask Chewie to send back a list of repairs the computer lists as needed after your last dogfight with the TIE fighters; I know you’ve done maintenance on the _Falcon_ before. It’ll help distract you.”

“Okay,” she said, resigned and knowing it was a reasonable course of action. She glanced up at Finn, who was sitting next to Rose, watching her sleep. At least they could catch up while she was “quarantined,” since he wouldn’t be flying the ship, and she could hear the rest of BB-8’s adventure story.

With a final, brief squeeze of the hand, Leia smiled and stepped away from the honest young woman. “One last thing. Not many people know that Kylo Ren is my son – I would prefer if you help me keep it that way. And those who do… well, they might be startled to hear you calling him by his given name. Be aware of what you say. We’ll discuss this more soon.”

Rey didn’t have the chance to ask whether “this” meant her using Ben’s name, Ben trying to track them down via their Force-bond, or how the connection itself worked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Falcon will get a bit more crowded in chapter 3, when Ben shows up.

**Author's Note:**

> I was not in to Reylo before TLJ, but it's such an _interesting_ dynamic. Think of what the prequels could have been like if there had been a similar onscreen chemistry between Anakin and Padme! Finn/Rey is still a strong preference of mine, so we'll see where this goes. Ch2 is partially written already.
> 
> Also... "Force bond" or "Force-bond", what do you think? Wookiepedia seems to indicate the latter is now Canon and the former Legends, but the dash seems a bit odd to me.
> 
> I'm hoping to get this idea out of my head and written down so that I can focus also on my in-progress Rogue One story. It's not abandoned!


End file.
